The Wasteland Chronicles
by Indiana Jerico
Summary: The lone wanderer chronicles his life out in the wastelands in the search for his father...
1. Chapter 1

**The Wasteland Chronicles: A Fallout 3 Fanfiction**

**First entry – August 17, 2177**

I don't know why I'm writing this, but so much has happened in the past nine hours that I feel I had to put things down in paper just so I can get a grip of it all. They say at certain points in your life, you come across some crossroads that alter your destiny. I think mine just took a total drop off a cliff. This is not a crossroad. Hell, I don't think the road's even there anymore. I don't know. I feel like I had been thrust into a big gaping maw of some hideous monster and I don't even know why I got there in the first place.

Right now, I am in this place called Megaton, several hundred yards off Vault 101 which, until nine hours ago, had been my home since birth. Even now, I still can't believe this is all happening. All I know is that I found myself being jarred out of sleep by Amata because my dad left the Vault and now, the Overseer is beside himself with rage and wants me dead. I know it's expressly forbidden to get out of the Vault but why must I be killed for what my dad did? It's some crazy stuff out of a stupid suspense book; I mean Jonas is dead for crying out loud! Maybe this is all just a fucking nightmare. Maybe I'll wake up in my bed, find out it's 9-fucking-30 in the morning and the Overseer will just give me an earful for being late for my cafeteria duties. Maybe this stupid radroach bite on my arm is not real. Maybe if I poke it I'll—

Fuck. It's real.

So that means that my dad really left the Vault to God knows where, that Jonas is really dead, that Butch really begged me to save his mom's life, and that Amata is left there in the den of lions. God, I hope she'll be alright. She better be, or I swear to God I'm going back there and…and…probably get killed because of what I did to Officer Mack. I'm really sorry I had to do that to him. I hope he's alright. We may not see eye to eye on most things but I do respect him a bit. I don't think I hit him too hard. He'll probably be walking around with a cast and some broken legs but…I really hope he's alright. But then again, I did hear a crack when my bat hit his head. Or maybe that's just his helmet. Maybe it protected him like it's supposed to do. After all, helmets are designed for that, aren't they?

Jesus Christ I'm rambling…

Amata. I hope she made the right decision staying there. Well, the Overseer did promise me he won't harm Amata. Not that he can anyway; he is still her father after all. And speaking of father, I've been listening to this holotape my dad left behind for me for the past half hour now and I still have no damn idea what he's trying to say. Left for what? For where? What could be something so important that he had to leave his son behind? That cost Jonas his life?

I'm sorry dad. You said you don't want me to follow you. Well, I didn't have any choice. I'm out here now; out of the Vault. Here in this place they call the Wasteland. I'll be following your footsteps and you better have a damn good explanation for what happened.

I love you dad. I hope you're alright.

I'm exhausted. The past nine hours had been the most hellish I've had in my life. My Pipboy shows that it's still 4 PM but I don't care, I'm tired and I'm going to sleep now, and I hope my brain will make sense of everything when I wake up. I just hope I don't dream of Jonas' lifeless eyes or being devoured by radroaches.


	2. Chapter 2

**August 18, 2177**

Right, well, my last entry was a mess. Looks like I was out of it yesterday. Can't really blame myself for that, what with everything happening so suddenly. I think I'm fine now, though. The sleep did me good, even if that was the first time I slept in a couch in the open air. But God, I never imagined this is how the outside looks like; it seemed so much different from the movies and the books in the Vault. The sky looks so blue, and the clouds…! I wish Amata could see this; she would have squealed like a giddy little girl. Although, I have to say, I have never seen such destruction before, either. Is this what's left of the world? Everywhere, all I see are ruins and decay. Hollowed shells of buildings and civilization. Again, it's very much different from what I've seen in the books.

Anyway, I'm thinking much clearly now so I guess I can put down a more coherent account of what's been happening so far.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I'm in Megaton right now. The first person to greet me when I came in yesterday was a black guy in a cowboy hat. Calls himself Lucas Simms. Apparently, he's the town's sheriff, kinda like those I've seen in the movies and serials. I wasn't able to talk to him much yesterday—kept silent, actually—so first thing I did when I woke up today was seek him out. Found him doing his rounds. Asked him about the place.

Apparently, Megaton was named because of the live atomic bomb in the middle of the "town". Jesus, this place is a living time bomb just waiting to explode, literally. What's more, there are some stupid cultists who've taken to worshipping the thing. I don't know whether the whole radiation thing has eaten their senses out or what, and frankly, I'm not too keen to find out. Their leader—calls himself Confessor Cromwell—is this old man who's always standing in front of the bomb, calling it their savior and what not. I think he's nuts.

Anyway, I asked Simms if he's seen my dad pass by the area. He was reluctant at first, but after I offered to help him disarm the bomb (for a price), he finally said that my dad indeed passed by. Said he went to this guy Moriarty's saloon. He also gave me a bit of a warning about him; seems like this Moriarty guy is bad news. Anyway, I asked him about some of the other places in Megaton and he answered well enough. Seems like an okay guy. I'm not looking to brew up trouble or anything but I think he's gonna be a handy guy to have by my side if shit starts to happen. Anyway, I bid him goodbye and then checked the bomb out. Seems like it's just an average type 23 A-Bomb, with a dual circuit redundancy loop on the nuclear core. I'm not an expert on explosives by any means but I think I should be able to short the core out with the right tools. Will have to verify it later, once I get more time. In the meantime, I just hope no poor sonnuvabitch will monkey around with it, otherwise I can just forget about the reward. Seeing as how this place survived this long with it, I don't see any reason to be worried.

I looked for Moriarty's saloon in the upper part of Megaton, as Simms pointed out. Found the place after half an hour of looking. Really, this place is just a whole piece of junk (I found out later that I was actually right; this place was made using scraps from some old planes from an airstrip a couple of miles out). When I got in, I was greeted by this rotting carcass of a person. No, I wasn't being rude. He actually looked like a rotting corpse. His name's Gob and he's what people in the wasteland call a Ghoul. Apparently, they're people who have been exposed to so much radiation that their flesh has decayed to a very severe degree. I was too shocked for words when he greeted me but apparently, he took it as a good sign. Seems like everyone else there either hits him or berates him on account of him being a Ghoul. I felt pity for him, actually. He seemed like such a nice guy when you get past the hideous face. I guess there are things even bombs can't wipe away. Like bigotry and hate, for instance. Anyway, he seemed to have taken a liking to me. Offered me a discount on drinks. Too bad I don't drink. I asked him about Moriarty and he told me to go to the back.

I found Moriarty hunched on a computer terminal. When he saw me, he immediately turned it off and was about to shout what the hell I was doing there when I asked him about my dad. Curiously, his attitude changed and this is where it got interesting.

He acted like he knew me before, and then told me some crap about how my dad and I, together with someone from some Brotherhood of Steel, passed by this very place twenty years ago when I was still a baby. When I told him that I was born and raised in the Vault, he laughed and said something about the lies some people tell to the ones they love. I told him he's a fucking liar and asked him where my dad went. He said he's gonna tell me the information for a price. Said some bullshit about how information is a commodity. I asked him how much the information was worth and he told me it's 100 bottle caps. Apparently, a bottle cap is what passes for money these days. Yes, a freaking bottle cap. Jesus, I'm beginning to think the whole world has gone nuts.

Anyway, I told him I don't normally carry around bottle caps with me; I mean hey, it's not like the Vault has a steady supply of Nuka Colas. Then he said that he can give me the info for a favor: it seems that some woman called Silver scammed him out of some money for some Psycho and Jet deal that didn't fall through. Now he wants me to get the money out of her. I told him to forget it; I'm not his errand boy. I said I'll get the info from him when I find 100 caps and the bastard raised the price to 300! Said since I declined his initial offer, he's raising the stakes. The bastard. I had half a mind to pound the info out of him but I remembered what Jonas said before: "Keep your head down, don't make waves. Use violence only as a last resort." Bless Jonas and his diplomatic ways.

Anyway, I went back to the bar and sat down, trying to think of another way to track down dad. That was when Gob asked me what was wrong. So I told him what Moriarty told me. Well, Gob took pity on me, and since he hates Moriarty, he told me about his terminal. Apparently, Moriarty keeps tabs of everything and everyone in that terminal. If there's any place where I can find my info, it'd be there. Problem is it's locked and I need a password to get in. Now, I'm not really a stranger to hacking terminals but I need time and it seems like Moriarty's always keeping an eye out for that piece so hacking into his system was going to be hard. Fortunately, someone else knew of the password. Gob told me to ask Nova, the saloon's resident whore, for lack of better term. So I did.

Fortunately for me, Nova was easy on the eyes. She's a beautiful redhead with cropped up hair and a body that's easily one of the best I've seen. Not that I've enough experience when it comes to women but she's easily sexier than Amata (no, I'm not being a pig; she really is). Anyway, it's easy enough for me to charm her and, since she also hates Moriarty, she gave me the terminal password (note to self: don't be an ass to people; it'll bite you back in the end). With a little help from Gob, we managed to distract Moriarty out long enough for me to sneak in and then access his terminal.

Like what Gob said, Moriarty keeps tabs of almost everything in there. The sneaky bastard has a lot of dirt about certain people in this town, no doubt for blackmailing purposes. After a minute, I finally found the entry for my dad. It seems that my dad wanted to know what's been happening in the world and Moriarty told him to seek out a certain Three Dog from Galaxy News Radio in DC. I dunno where that is but I sure as hell am going to find out. Anyway, he wrote about how dad stayed in the saloon with me almost twenty years ago, before going into the Vault. I was sure that he was lying before when he told me, but now I'm not anymore. After all, there was no reason for him to lie when he wrote that. It's not like he expected me to get into his terminal, right?

Anyway, I logged off and immediately went back to the bar. Thanked Gob for what he did and then asked him what he knew about Galaxy News Radio and Three Dog. Well, he and Nova filled me in. It seems like Three Dog is a radio jockey always talking about fighting the Good Fight; apparently, he spreads news about what's going on in the wastelands. I asked them if they knew where Galaxy News Radio is located but unfortunately, the only thing Nova can say for sure is that it's somewhere in downtown DC. Gob did show me how I can tune in to the radio using my Pipboy though. Cool. I didn't even know my Pipboy can get any stations aside from the Vault 101 station. He also told me about the Enclave station. I don't know what the Enclave is but from what I've listening from it for the past morning, it's some sort of military or government station. That's funny; I didn't know there was still a government standing in these times. Well, apparently there is, and our president is someone named Eden or something. Whatever. At least now I can listen to some tunes when I'm bored.

I went out of the saloon and decided on my next course of action. Obviously, I need to go to this Galaxy News Radio but I currently have to problems: one, I need to find out where it is and two, I need to get supplies when I do decide to go there. So I guess that means getting enough money (or, as it is in these times, caps) and items. I can't very well trek the wastelands with just my baseball bat, my BB gun, and the 10mm handgun Amata gave me with 190 bullets to its name. So, I decided to go to the general store and sell off the extra things I got out when I escaped the Vault.

The Craterside Supply is the only place that passes for a store in this place so I went there. It was full of junk and stuff. Curiously, there was also another Vault jumpsuit on display. The place is being run by this cheeky and unnaturally excitable woman called Moira Brown and truthfully, she creeps me out. She's just too bubbly for my taste. Like she splurged on a pack of irradiated candies. Anyway, sold her some of the stuff I got and managed to get some caps for them. It's not enough but I think it's a good start. I asked her about the Vault suit and she told me this story about some woman who left it there ten years ago or so. Come to think of it, I read somewhere on the Overseer's terminal while I was hacking it during my escape that he sent several people from the Vault to explore the outside. I guess she was one of those people. Moira told me she never saw her again, must've probably died out there or something. And then, she asked me if I can help her with her little project. It appears she's making a book, a Wasteland Survival Guide, and she wants me to be her researcher, since she figured I'm an experienced explorer of the wastelands or something. Seriously. I can't believe what I was hearing. I mean, here I am, in a town where everyone would as soon trust a radroach than their fellow human being, and this woman who owns their general freaking store asks a complete stranger to help her on her precious project. It must be the irradiated candies.

Anyway, I was about to tell her that I haven't even been out in the outside world for two days when she said something about a reward for it. Okay, that perked me up. Any reward will help me out in my quest. So I asked her what she wanted out of me, and it turns out she wants me to go to this place called Minefield to check out the area and then bring her some mines. As the name suggests, the place seems to be chockfull of them. I showed hesitation about what she wanted me to do but she said I'm gonna do fine. After all, I am the Great Wasteland Explorer. She said this smiling in a bubbliness that scared me. Mental note: don't take whatever food stuff she offers.

Anyway, I really don't have much of a choice. I need the money and I need the supplies and it looks like being a friend with the owner of the town's general store will benefit me in the future. I guess I'll be going to Minefield now. The Galaxy News Radio will have to wait. I just hope my dad can stay safe until then, but knowing him, I think he will be.

He has to be.


End file.
